It Couldn't Happen Here

This surely must be one of the most surreally funny film that I have every seen - who could forget Joss Ackland's priest or Gareth Hunt's over-the-top breakfast order. The must surely have provided some inspiration to the classic League Of Gentlemen comedy team.

Wonderfully eccentric mix of influences - catholicism, run-down seaside towns, naughty nuns, greasy spoon caffs - this has got the lot.

Obviously, not as much fun for people that don't like the Pet Shop Boys - but even they might find some amusements here.

On the back of releasing their album 'Actually', which plays like a greatest hits and includes the iconic "It's a Sin", PSBs decided to release this musical, feature length music video, depending how you'd like to look at it. As a film, it is disjointed, pretentious, with some fairly dreadful dialogue, delivered mostly in Neil Tennant's dull monotone. As a music video, it's perfect, full of odd and surreal goings on, with a few hand fulls of sexual innuendo, interspersed with catholic imagery, nuns in suspenders, a killer priest, Barbara Winsor, an appallingly over the top used car salesman and Clacton acting as the backdrop, the not so proverbial coastal town that they forgot to close down. We all know the landscape, and the songs, fast forward the bad bits by all means, but It Couldn't Happen Here, It's a Sin, Heart, Suberbia and One More Chance will each leave you encapsulated and wondering why more bands don't give this a try. Flawed yes, but Neil and Chris, thank you for give us this.

Makes as much sense as Twin Peaks: The Return. I love it.

This film starts with arty images and Neil Tennant riding a bicycle on the path near the seashore and the title tune playing. The music is very good in the film with many hit songs such as Always on my Mind, Rent and It's a Sin featured. I've been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys since they arrived on the scene in the mid-eighties and like their oddness and style. This film is a surreal trip the Boys take somewhere in Southern England. They seem to have a fascination with Scunthorpe. Most of the actors play multiple characters, including respected Joss Ackland as a priest and an insane murderer who utters about Salvador Dali and tarot cards; former New Avenger and coffee ad-man Gareth Hunt as a practical joker, a morose postcard-seller and a wig-wearing ventriloquist whose philosophical dummy talks on its own; and current Eastender and Carry On veteran Barbara Windsor in two brief roles. There are some striking images on show, such as a man walking down the street on fire, men who look like zebras and cows on railway station platforms. It's sort of a Greenaway-wannabe type film, but with the star music duo's songs added. But it's still an interesting and amiable journey to experience.